I’ve done a lot of tours for modified car fans in Japan over the past few years, from guiding an entire tour-bus load around Tokyo, all the way down to one person riding along to a track day. I recently met up with a group of nine Australians who wanted to do a whirlwind tour of some of the more famous and interesting shops in Tokyo, so I thought I’d take a few pics along the way.

The first stop on the tour was one of the basic requirements of a workshop tour, Top Secret’s headquarters in Chiba.

I was up in Gunma the other day, so I stopped in to visit N-Style, a bodyshop that has made quite a few cars that have featured previously on Noriyaro.

The shop’s owner Nagahama nearly fell over when I pulled up in my van, as I was the last person he expected to show up on a Tuesday afternoon. After enjoying a can of coffee and having a quick chat, I poked around the yard to see what made up his latest lineup of personal cars.

What sort of reaction do you think you’d have when the 1000hp R35 GT-R you built did a 1’46.688 around Fuji Speedway while wearing the standard Dunlop run-flat tyres, then hit 325.7km/h on the front straight? Keep in mind that it’s just under a mile long (1.5km) and that F1 cars max out at 310km/h.

Remember the crazy FF drift, slammed, onikyan Celica driven by Drift Tengoku staff member Kawashima? After crashing the car at Fuji Speedway, he bought another Celica to modify. This car, he insisted, was going to be at least twice as crazy as the last one.

I dropped in on Body Shop Newtype earlier this week, which is run by Sexy Knights member Niiyan (who drives the Nanagouki RX-7) where the car will be worked on to see it had come along at all. He hadn’t started it at that point, but he posted up these pics on his blog yesterday.

Needless to say, this car is going to be attention-getting and opinion-forming.

The following is a translation of the post on Niiyan’s blog. Before you ask, yes the tyres hold air, yes the car has registration, yes, Kawashima plans to commute to work in it and drift it.

Good evening everyone, let’s begin.

You all enjoyed the video from Tsukuba, right? (He’s talking about this video – Alexi)